Conventionally, there have been known component mounters which are designed such that an adhesive sheet for fixation of mounting components is applied onto a display panel such as a liquid crystal panel and, on this adhesive sheet, mounting components are to be pressure bonded. In one example of those component mounters, with a separation-sheet added ACF (Anisotropic Conductive Film) applied to a liquid crystal panel, the separation-sheet of the ACF is separated off and thereafter mounting components (e.g., thin-type LSI package components) are pressure bonded to the ACF, by which components are mounted on the liquid crystal panel. Such a conventional component mounter is equipped with an ACF applying device to fulfill the ACF applying.
In the conventional ACF applying device described above, in the feeding of a separation-sheet added ACF wound around a reel, the ACF is cut into pieces of a specified length and fed onto a board placed on a stage, and then pressed by a head so that the ACF (ACF pieces) cut into a specified length is applied onto the board, while the separation-sheet is separated off, and thus the ACF applying operation is accomplished. Such a sequential ACF applying operation is repeatedly performed, by which ACF applying operations for a plurality of ACF applying positions on the board are carried out.
In the conventional ACF applying device described above, with a view to lessening the replacement frequency of the reel, a reel in which a plurality of succeeding ACFs are joined together by seams is used, and positions of the seams are detected by detection means. In this arrangement, to remove the ACFs placed closely before and after the seams from the separation-sheet, a removal-applying operation for the ACFs placed closely before and after the seams onto a removal-applying stage prepared in addition to the stage is executed. Thus, it is possible to continue the production after completion of the removal-applying operation without so much interruption (see, e.g., JP 2003-209143 A).